Kolam is a south Indian artform of drawing patterns on the ground in front of houses for decoration purposes. Relating these cultural designs as illustrations in mathematics classroom facilitates the learning enjoyable. This paper connects the aspects such as (i) representation and exploration of kolam patterns in terms of kolam moves that are similar to Turtle moves, (ii) accessibility of kolam patterns for vision impaired people as tactile diagrams (iii) relevance of a few elementary mathematical concepts and (iv) expression of simple kolam patterns with an inclusive tool, Tactile Kolam Cube. With an ethnomathematics perspective this paper provides scope to appreciate the cultural aspect on one hand and the mathematical properties on the other. We propose the tactile kolam sheets as teaching aids and tactile kolam cube as an assistive tool, and hence the focus of this paper is on these as classroom resources in mathematics pedagogy. Two types of kolam patterns viz. Kambi kolam and Hridhaya kamalam are referred in this paper.

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Tactile Kolam Patterns – Communicating Art and Mathematics to Students with Vision Impairments

  • Robinson Thamburaj,
  • Krishnamachari Desikachari,
  • Gnanaraj Thomas

摘要

Kolam is a south Indian artform of drawing patterns on the ground in front of houses for decoration purposes. Relating these cultural designs as illustrations in mathematics classroom facilitates the learning enjoyable. This paper connects the aspects such as (i) representation and exploration of kolam patterns in terms of kolam moves that are similar to Turtle moves, (ii) accessibility of kolam patterns for vision impaired people as tactile diagrams (iii) relevance of a few elementary mathematical concepts and (iv) expression of simple kolam patterns with an inclusive tool, Tactile Kolam Cube. With an ethnomathematics perspective this paper provides scope to appreciate the cultural aspect on one hand and the mathematical properties on the other. We propose the tactile kolam sheets as teaching aids and tactile kolam cube as an assistive tool, and hence the focus of this paper is on these as classroom resources in mathematics pedagogy. Two types of kolam patterns viz. Kambi kolam and Hridhaya kamalam are referred in this paper.